Battle-Brothers

by Gav Thorpe

  Two seconds later the stasis field collapsed. Bullets and las-flares rang out, criss-crossing with bolt-rounds, while the charge thrown by Charael clanged heavily against the barricade.

  Another second passed before the melta bomb detonated, shredding the metal carcass of a loading vehicle, spraying white-hot metal and deadly splinters.

  The Black Knights needed no further order and formed up in a line behind their huntmaster as he aimed his bike at the gap.

  ‘No cease in our speed, we will return for justice later,’ commanded Charael as his bike disappeared into the pall of smoke billowing from the ruined barricade.

  Gideon trusted to his autosenses and aimed for the gap, on the tail of the last Black Knight. The squadron plunged through the opening, still accelerating as the shocked pirates hurled themselves out of their path.

  Not pausing to finish off their foes, the squadron raced on into the depths of Port Imperial, forming up in escort around Gideon. A few last desultory rounds sparked from their armour and the walls as the pirates sent a final flurry of shots after them.

  The Apothecary activated his vox-link.

  ‘Sergeant Tennerus, how is Gabrael?’

  ‘Barely conscious, brother.’

  ‘Hold firm, we will be with you shortly.’

  Gideon cut the link and concentrated on following Charael as he swerved between heaps of debris, past collapsed walls and through doors at breakneck speed. The Apothecary was determined that no Dark Angel would die today if he could prevent it.

  Considering his situation, Cassiel concluded that he had been in more dire circumstances before, but not many. Glancing around the battle-marked warehouse, he considered his options and formulated a plan. His first priority was to reduce the number of entrances into the chamber, so that the enemy would not be able to come at him from too many directions.

  Heaving himself from the steps, he used the wall as a brace to hobble towards the main doors. He activated the locking mechanism and keyed in a new override code so that the pirates would not be able to open it again. With this done, he conveyed himself across the chamber in a series of leaps towards the elevator, pausing every few seconds to scan the upper level and hatchways for foes. It was not a dignified way to move, but it was effective, and within a minute he had reached the elevator doors.

  Pushing himself upright inside the cage, he smashed a fist into the control panel, ripping out the workings with his gauntleted fingers. To make sure of his handiwork, he pulled a grenade from his belt, set the charge to ten seconds’ delay and forced it into the ragged hole he had made.

  Exiting the elevator, Cassiel propelled himself back towards the remains of Incitatus. He had covered about twenty metres when the grenade detonated behind him. Tortured metal screeched for a moment and he turned to see the cage dropping from view, its descent ending with a thunderous crash a few seconds later.

  With a combination of jumping and crawling, he dragged himself on to the broken remnants of his steed and checked its condition. There was no way it could be ridden; the back end and wheel were completely destroyed. However, a quick diagnostic scan showed that most of the major systems were still working and he activated Incitatus’s auspex. The scanner blinked into life on the display, showing roughly half a dozen life signals close at hand, on the level above the warehouse.

  Pulling free his bolt pistol, the sergeant manoeuvred himself with his back propped up against the bike, facing towards a pair of maintenance ducts about thirty metres away. His autosenses picked up the sounds of heavy breaths and the scrape of boots issuing from the narrow passages.

  ‘Come on in, little rats,’ he muttered.

  The first pirate that crawled out of the duct was a woman, dressed in dirty blue coveralls and a padded helmet. She had a lasgun slung awkwardly across her chest and she struggled to free the weapon as she stood up.

  Cassiel’s bolt took her full in the face, blowing her head apart.

  Switching his view to thermal scan, he sent three rounds into the other vent access, the white detonations of the bolts creating a spatter of orange against the accessway lining. Turning his attention back to the first duct, he fired again, two bolts greeting another pirate as he tried to push himself free of its confines.

  The vague blobs of heat that signified the presence of the other attackers withdrew before he could fire again. Turning slightly, he checked Incitatus’s display. The gunfire had attracted some attention, or perhaps the rebels had communicated his presence in some other way. Whatever the cause, more signals were converging on his position from above.

  Pulling himself to his right, Cassiel searched through his bike’s remaining pannier storage compartment and found another four bolt pistol magazines and several frag grenades. He laid them on the decking beside him within easy reach, took another look at the auspex returns, and waited for the next group of attackers to make their move.

  Gideon and the Black Knights found Gabrael and his battle-brothers at a crossroads of sorts; a high vaulted chamber where six tunnelways converged. The area was choked with fallen debris from the bombardment of the two strike cruisers and Gabrael lay atop a mound of rubble next to his half-buried steed. Sergeant Tennerus was dismounted beside him while the rest of the squadron had been dispersed to hold three of the intersecting passages; their bike-mounted bolters rang out intermittently as they confronted incoming groups of pirates.

  ‘Praise the Lion you are here, brother,’ said Tennerus, stepping away from the prone Space Marine.

  ‘We will aid the defence,’ announced Charael, indicating to his squadron to follow him as he continued past the casualty. ‘Take the all the time needed.’

  ‘I think Sergeant Cassiel might prefer otherwise,’ replied Gideon as he stepped off Eclipse’s saddle.

  ‘A grenade dislodged a partially collapsed support,’ explained Tennerus. ‘Bad luck, nothing more.’

  Gabrael’s helm had been removed and his face was covered with waxy sweat, eyelids flickering between wakefulness and unconsciousness. A trail of blood showed where he had been dragged from the rubble, but it was not the half-tonne of rockrete that had caused the damage. Jutting from the left side of the Space Marine’s chest was a five-centimetre-thick reinforcing spar. Thick, coagulating fluid bubbled across his plastron from the wound, coating his black armour with a slick sheen.

  Gideon worked in silence, removing Gabrael’s shoulder guards first, trying not to move the casualty, so that he could decouple the breastplate. With this done, Gideon stood and gestured to Tennerus.

  ‘I need you to pull out the bar, sergeant.’

  Tennerus nodded, grasping the jutting shaft in both hands. He steadied himself, planting his feet apart to brace, and then looked again at the Apothecary.

  ‘Swiftly and surely, brother,’ Gideon assured the sergeant.

  With another nod, Tennerus flexed his grip and then pulled.

  Gabrael moaned, blood-flecked saliva bubbling from his mouth as the sergeant wrenched away the spar and chestplate together, exposing the wound. The Space Marine had been forced down onto the jagged metal, which had driven up through his ribcage into the chest cavity, piercing a lung and possibly one of Gabrael’s hearts. Any normal human would have died instantly, and many Space Marines too, but Gabrael was obviously made of sterner stuff and Gideon was impressed he was able to remain semi-aware.

  ‘Bad, but not fatal,’ Gideon announced, examining the damage.

  He activated the narthecium built into the gauntlet and forearm of his left arm, spraying anaesthetic agent into the bloody gash. Bloodied miniature bonesaws and suturing needles worked at the wound under Gideon’s direction, stitching and patching the internal damage as best he could, stemming the worst of the blood loss. The Apothecary finished with an organic foam sealant that quickly hardened, reinforcing the scabbing that was already occurring.

  ‘He can be moved,’ Gideon said, standing up. ‘Sergeant, detail one of your warriors to take him back to grid alpha. I have orderlie
s there ready to evacuate casualties back to the strike cruiser. They will be able to stabilise him further.’

  ‘Our thanks, Brother-Apothecary,’ said Tennerus.

  Gideon said nothing and opened up a communication channel.

  ‘Sergeant Cassiel, your signal is still strong. What is your condition?’

  Several seconds passed before Cassiel replied.

  ‘I am a little busy with these pirate scum, Brother Gideon, but otherwise faring well.’

  ‘Acknowledged, sergeant. I will be en route to your position shortly.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting. Nowhere else to go for the moment.’

  Gideon smiled at the sergeant’s poor joke and cut the vox-link. He reviewed the last few minutes’ worth of filtered transmissions and assured himself that there had been no further serious injuries requiring more immediate attention than Cassiel.

  ‘Huntmaster, please fix on Sergeant Cassiel’s position. Let us leave Sergeant Tennerus and his brothers to their mission.’

  ‘As you wish, Brother-Apothecary,’ came Charael’s reply. ‘Fixing augurs on Cassiel’s location beacon. One and a half kilometres, grid north-east.’

  Gideon mounted Eclipse and raised a hand in salute to Gabrael as Tennerus lifted the wounded Space Marine to his feet. There was already more clarity in the Dark Angel’s eyes.

  ‘Only in death does duty end,’ Gabrael said hoarsely.

  ‘Aye, brother,’ replied Gideon. ‘Yours will not end this day.’

  Slipping another magazine into his bolt pistol – only two left – Cassiel wondered why the rebels seemed so determined to kill him. In his current state and position he posed no operational threat to their plans, yet they had come at him three more times since the squadron had departed. Twenty-two more bodies lay cooling in the dim light of the warehouse as testament to the welcome he had given them.

  He had heard over the vox-link talk of the ‘Unworthy’. From the scattered information he gathered that these rebels were more than merely pirates. They had a cult-like mentality, and it seemed that they considered slaying him as some kind of unholy goal. Fortunately, their single-mindedness was not matched by their skill, or their tactical acumen. They seemed willing to die by the dozen in exchange for just his death; a situation that allowed him to continue to aid his brothers’ efforts by continuing to survive.

  With an instinctual glance at the auspex, the sergeant confirmed that the Unworthy had given up trying to enter the warehouse through the maintenance ducts and accessways. Now they had gathered outside the main doors.

  Casting his gaze towards the large portal he could see the glow of some kind of cutting gear heating up the metal; a las-cutter most likely, unwieldy and slow compared to a melta-charge. Though their entry would not be swift, their numbers were still growing. The life signals merged together on the auspex but numbered at least two dozen.

  For a moment, Cassiel considered signalling to Command for assistance. He dismissed the notion quickly. The Ravenwing and Fifth Company had a task to complete, to apprehend the mysterious enemy commander who was referred to as the Overlord by the Unworthy. It would be a grossly selfish act by Cassiel to distract them from that objective simply for his own survival.

  With that decision made, the sergeant considered how best to confront the growing threat outside the main doors. He evaluated his resources.

  Firstly, himself. Mobility impaired, thirty rounds of bolt pistol ammunition remaining. His short-bladed power sword was still sheathed at his waist. Sufficient for the moment, but against a concerted attack from a single direction he would eventually be overwhelmed.

  Secondly, Incitatus. Pulling himself over the bike’s remains, Cassiel inspected his fallen steed’s weapon systems. The right-mounted bolter was operational but the ammunition and feed had been destroyed by the plasma blast. The left bolter system was still intact.

  His hands moved without thought, centuries of maintenance and experience guiding his fingers better than conscious effort, as he decoupled the bolter from its mounting and dragged free the chain of bolt ammunition. Setting this to one side, he checked on the doors, seeing droplets of metal now running down the inside. He still had a couple of minutes until the Unworthy made their first breach.

  He freed the right-hand bolter next, pulling it away from the mangled remnants of the feed mechanism. He gave silent thanks to the ancient tech-priests that had first devised the wargear of the Adeptus Astartes ten thousand years before as he slipped back the bolter’s casing, exposing a slot that matched his pistol magazines. He slammed in the spare and reattached the bolter to Incitatus, dragging the bike through ninety degrees so that the front mounting was aimed towards the door. The fairing canopy would add to the protection afforded by his power armour.

  The outline of a roughly man-sized hole was glowing across the door now, the metal flowing into pools to cool on the decking.

  Cassiel settled as best he could and rested his arm on the top of the bike’s fairing, pistol in hand, and waited.

  With a clang, the cut section of door dropped into the warehouse. Cassiel did not wait to see an enemy, but opened fire immediately, sending a flurry of bolts into the opening, rewarded by shrieks of pain from whoever had been wielding the las-cutter.

  The first pirate through was cut in half by Cassiel’s next salvo, as was the next. There seemed to be no fear in the Unworthy as they leapt through the gap, wildly snapping shots from lasguns and autoguns, each met by one or two carefully-placed bolt-rounds.

  In the press of bodies, one of the pirates made a move for the door control panel. From the inside, the override code could be circumvented. Cassiel recognised the danger immediately and adjusted his aim, ignoring another Unworthy who was levelling her automatic pistol in his direction. The pirate reaching for the door controls fell with a fist-sized hole in the back of his head as the other let loose with a burst of fire.

  Bullets sprayed from Incitatus’s front mounting, flecking chips of ceramite and paint into Cassiel’s face. He didn’t flinch, and calmly fired back, sending two bolts into the Unworthy’s gut and chest. The momentary distraction had allowed two more pirates to enter, and they again split, forcing Cassiel to divide his fire as a las-flash streaked off his left shoulder guard.

  Ditching the empty bolt pistol, Cassiel grabbed the manual trigger of the bike bolter and fired on full automatic, emptying the fifteen-bolt magazine in a few seconds, shredding the handful of Unworthy that had gained entry. A glance down at the auspex glowing beside him showed that there were about half a dozen foes left.

  Cassiel freed a grenade from his belt and lobbed it through the hole in the door, the flash of its detonation silhouetting two pirates for a moment before the fragmentation shards flung their bodies through the opening.

  Silence descended, broken by the patter of feet as the surviving Unworthy retreated. Through the ragged breach in the door he could see them regrouping at the far end of the corridor. With this he realised that as well as he could see them, they could see him. If he remained where he was, and if the Unworthy could find another plasma gun or perhaps a rocket launcher or other heavy weapon, he would be in plain sight for a long-range shot.

  He rolled away from the bike to get out of sight, taking the dismounted bolter with him. From this angle he could still see a few metres up the passageway, but no further. Cassiel gathered up the snaking cable of the ammunition feed and coiled it on the floor next to him.

  Pressing the firing stud on his bike’s handlebars, Gideon unleashed a ripple of bolt detonations into the packed enemies ahead. Around him, more fire spewed down the passageway from his escort. The green-skinned brutes parted like a wave before the charge of the Black Knights; the presence of orks aboard Port Imperial had come as a surprise to the Dark Angels. Somehow, the xenos fiends had found common cause with the Unworthy and were proving a tougher foe to eliminate.

  Gideon and the squadron were responding to a call for aid from a squad from the Fifth Company, who had been set
upon by the orks whilst clearing out a maze of chambers beneath one of the major power and coolant interchanges. One of the Space Marines was already dead and another critically wounded, forcing the Apothecary to adjust his priorities.

  As more orks tumbled lifelessly to the floor, Gideon caught a glimpse of his green-armoured brethren defending a stairwell and intersection. The orks came at them from above and below and the squad was engulfed in a storm of bullets, las-fire and grenade blasts.

  Like a thunderbolt, the Black Knights swept into the press of foes, swinging their glowing corvus hammers, Charael leading the charge with glittering power sword chopping to the left and right. Gideon tracked his fire to one side, sending another hail of bullets into one of the adjoining corridors as he slowed at the junction, cutting down more foes.

  Stirred by the arrival of reinforcements, the warriors of the Fifth Company sallied out from their defensive position, bolters blazing, their sergeant wading into the orks with wide sweeps of his chainsword. Gideon slowed only enough to avoid a pile of the dead, cannoning through the orks directly, sending them sprawling to either side; the Black Knights were around him to guard against counter-attack.

  Tyres screeching, Gideon brought Eclipse to a stop at the foot of the stairwell and leapt onto the steps, his narthecium activated. Halfway to the next landing, two brothers of the squad stood guard over their wounded companion, their bolters holding back a mob of human pirates trying to descend.

  Gideon ignored the fighting and stooped over the injured Space Marine. His helmet had been cleaved almost in two, skull and face opened up by the jagged teeth of some viciously toothed chain-weapon. His right ear was missing and his jaw hanging limply, breaths coming fast and ragged. Now and then a spray of bullets or spatter of las-fire sparked from the bulkhead beside the Apothecary but he focused on the task at hand.

  He inserted one of the narthecium’s injectors into the neck of the wounded battle-brother, sending a stream of stimulants into the Dark Angel. Almost immediately his eyes flickered open, confused and roving. The Larraman cells coursing through the Space Marine’s bloodstream had created a thick clot over the worst of the wound, but prevented Gideon from seeing the damage within. He applied an anti-coagulant and deftly scraped away the scab, exposing torn artery and shattered skull.